The review was driven by a desire to provide a more consistent benefits offering for its 2,500 employees working across the region.
The organisation is working with global adviser, Willis Employee Benefits, to assess its current benefits provision, to identify potential cost efficiencies and look at the governance of each scheme.
Cushman and Wakefield uses a global pool for its 16,000 global staff. This replaces the regional pool it used for benefits such as medical schemes, until it concluded that this approach was not the best fit because of the size of its EMEA workforce.
Provider relationships
The organisation is also assessing its benefits provider relationships as part of the review.
Neil Fitzgerald, head of reward, EMEA at Cushman and Wakefield, says: “One thing we’re looking at is our company car scheme: is there one lease provider across Europe that we could potentially use? Because again, each country is doing its own individual thing: some are leasing cars, some are buying them.
“We want to make sure we’re being consistent and that someone with expertise is looking at it. So we’re just trying to bring that regional overview and expertise.”
Before working with Willis, Cushman and Wakefield appointed two or three brokers to manage its benefits in the UK, and separate brokers in each of the countries in which it operates.
“We are really trying to consolidate everything together under Willis,” says Fitzgerald. “We’ve just got one point of contact and are hopefully leveraging our purchasing power now.”
